


I didn't mean to

by grimmfairy



Series: Coping [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Accidental Death, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Protective Leonard Snart, Sad Barry, Sharing a Bed, crying barry, len tries to make it better, understanding leonard snart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 23:44:03
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9210503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimmfairy/pseuds/grimmfairy
Summary: Based on a tumblr postBarry accidentally kills a would-be mugger, and Captain Cold is a witness. Instead of letting the Flash take the fall, Len cleans it up and takes care of Barry at home. But there's only so much hot chocolate can fix.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Crimson1](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson1/gifts).



_Barry remembered the first time he and Iris snuck into an R-rated movie. They were barely fourteen and Iris was rebellious and Barry was smitten, so they decided to see the new movie that Joe had already refused to take them to. He remembered the way Iris had looked over at him as the lights dimmed, her face flushed with excitement at their success at dodging the ushers and the sharing of a secret. He also remembers the way the blood looked when it spurted dramatically from a henchman's chest when he was stabbed by the hero onscreen, how bright red and off-putting it looked. How the henchman had spilled all the details the hero needed to know before he bled out several minutes later._

_Why were movies always wrong?_

"Oh my god..."

_Blood wasn't that ultimate bright shade of red when it seeped from a real wound._

_It was darker, thicker, than in the movies._

_And the sounds that a blade going through soft tissue made were different in real life too. Wetter, more subdued and followed by a horrible gurgle that was missing from the movies._

"Oh my _god_..."

_Barry wondered why movies always showed people talking after traumatic injuries. Real punctures in the heart caused near-instantaneous unconsciousness. There would be no talking._

"BARRY!" 

Someone was shouting at him. Hands were grabbing his biceps tightly. He looked up from the scene on the ground before him.

Oh yeah, Cold was here. He saw.

"Barry, can you hear me?" 

Why was Cold being so loud? He wasn't deaf. 

"Barry, snap out of it. I need you to focus on my voice, okay?"

Barry looked back down. There was much more blood in the movies.

"I...What did I...I _killed_..." Barry choked, his voice barely recognizable. He sounded like he had been screaming. The hands on his arms tightened to the point of pain. Barry focused on the pain, used it as an anchor to pull himself back from the ledge. It felt real.

"It was an accident, kid. Self defense even."

Barry started to tremble. A knife wasn't self defense against superpowers. He was a murderer. 

"Oh, oh god, I killed him," Barry said in that same, not-right voice. "I killed him, I killed him, I-"

He felt his chest press into Cold's, and his face was guided into the crook of the crook's neck ( _Pun_ , Barry thought hysterically) even as he kept up his mantra. 

"Shh, don't say that. No, no you didn't. I did."

A hand was stroking his hair, the other curled tightly around his waist. The hood of Cold's parka was up, and the fur trim was tickling Barry's skin. Cold smelled like pine.

"You didn't kill this guy, I did. He attacked me, I reacted. That's what you'll say if anyone finds out, okay?"

"But it was _me_ ," Barry whimpered. "I didn't...I didn't _mean_ to...He had a knife, and-and I was so tired-"

"I know, Barry. It was an accident."

Barry clutched desperately at Cold's parka. He felt like if he let go he was going to float away. 

"Barry, go home. Take a bath, get some sleep, and put your suit somewhere in a garbage bag, alright? I'll take care of everything here, and in three hours I'll come to your place and clean your suit. Nod if you understand."

Barry nodded. He wanted to go back to his apartment. His wet gloved hands were freezing.

"No one will ever know. I'll never tell anyone, and neither will you. Three hours, Barry."

* * *

Len could hardly believe what he'd seen. Barry, compassionate, heroic, self-sacrificing Barry, had killed a man. 

Not on purpose, of course. It wasn't Barry's fault (at least not entirely) that he no real combat training and was still clumsy in hand-to-hand confrontations. And knives. Knives were messy and uncontrollable in the inexperienced hands of a mugger jonesing for the next fix. It the mugger's fault, in Len's moral opinion. At least the would-be victim had scrammed as soon as Barry arrived, fresh off beating whatever meta-human had provided tonight's distraction. It had been a perfect night, with his heist and the Flash too distracted to bother him.

If only.

Barry slipped up, the knife went the wrong way. It wasn't his fault.

Len remembered the first time he killed a man. His horror at the mess, the kick-back of the gun in his hand and the spray of blood across his face. The sick way his father had congratulated him on "popping his cherry". The way Lisa had never quite looked at him the same way ever again even though she was too young at the time to truly understand what had happened. He remembered seeing the same look on his face, the one that had seemed frozen on Barry's face behind the cowl, the look of surprise. Barry didn't know he was there, watching, as he taunted the mugger halfheartedly, bone-weary and bruised from his other battle. He saw the moment that Barry made a mistake. His speed was barely controlled, his movements unpracticed. The knife was sharp and the angle was just too perfect to miss the mugger's heart.

Before he had met the man behind the mask, Len would have been more than happy to let the hero take the blame. Possibly go to jail. Spiral out of control and into misery.

But he had met Barry. Followed him, studied him, learned of his past. And he just couldn't bring himself to let the kid suffer. To let Barry think he was the same as him. A murderer. 

So he took care of it. No surveillance cameras were in the area, which made his job easier. The body itself wasn't hard to dispose of. Even in this grimy part of town there were funeral homes with crematoriums and bad security. Even if someone went looking for this nobody, which was unlikely with the man's current state, there was nothing to find. Nothing but the blood on Barry's suit.

He had long ago figured out where Barry lived when he wasn't hanging around the West home. The apartment was small but respectable, in a respectably safe part of town. The door was unlocked when he walked in, and pieces of the Flash suit were strewn in a rough path to the bathroom. A quick check in the bedroom showed a lump under the blankets in the bed and many years of raising his sister told him that Barry wasn't actually asleep. Len sighed and grabbed the bloody gloves off the floor and fished around in Barry's linen closet for some detergent. Miraculously, the gloves seemed to be the only part of the suit that had been noticeably soiled by the mugger. The rest of the damage would be written off as blood from Barry's own wounds after the meta fight, and would be removed by Cisco. He rinsed the bath tub of residual soap, and filled it again and added detergent. He left them to soak for awhile, and went back to the bedroom and leaned against the door frame. Barry looked much smaller curled up in bed than he would have guessed.

"Snart?" Barry sat up, the blankets sliding off his bare shoulders and pooling around the waist on his sweatpants. His hair was still wet, his eyes were wide and blank, and his skin was still a little bit pink. He had scrubbed his skin raw, Len realized with a sick churn in his stomach. And it was already healing.

"Are you hungry?" He asked. Barry shrugged, his gaze falling to the bedspread. Len repressed the urge to tell him everything was going to be okay. It wasn't.

"Is it-is _he_...?" Barry stressed, wincing at his words. 

"He's taken care of. No one will find anything even if they tried."

Barry nodded, sagging slightly. Len recognized this look too. The haunted eyes, the lines around the mouth. The self-loathing, the guilt at being glad he wouldn't be found out. Barry had a lot of blankets on the bed, Len realized. 

"Are you cold?" Len asked, and was slightly encouraged by the little nod that Barry gave. "Get back under the covers. Watch some TV or something."

"Leonard?" Barry asked timidly when Len started to turn away. "Don't...please don't go? Not yet."

"I won't," Len found himself promising. He didn't really know why he said that. "I'll be back."

The kitchen was small, and it was easy to find what he was looking for. Barry had quite the sweet tooth, which Len already knew. But it had the added benefit of ensuring that Barry had the necessary ingredients for real cocoa. He heard the soft sound of muffled dialogue filter of out the bedroom a few minutes into his task, and he knew that Barry had taken his advice. That kid wasn't going to be able to sleep tonight, that much was obvious. He never would have wished this on his worst enemy, much less his heroic foil. His phone buzzed, and he checked the message. It was Lisa's coded affirmative that she had stashed their haul and it was time to lay low for a bit. At least there was that. 

Barry was staring blankly at his laptop screen when Len returned with two mugs. He realized that Barry was watching an episode of CSI with his covers pulled up to his neck. He handed Barry one of the mugs, and placed his own on the table.

"I have marshmallows," Barry whispered, clutching his mug close. "In the cabinet over the stove."

Len quirked a small smile.

"What about some peroxide?"

He fetched the peroxide from its place under the bathroom sink, and placed it next to the tub for later. The marshmallows were exactly where Barry had said they'd be, so he grabbed a handful and brought them back to the bedroom and divided them into the mugs. Barry hadn't even taken a sip yet. Len sat on the bed next to Barry, on top of the covers with about a foot of space between them. Barry was still staring at the the screen, his eyes following the action now, but the blank look was still present. Len sipped at his drink, and Barry mimicked him after a few minutes. Some of the color had returned to his face by the time he drained the mug, though Len wished he would eat something.

"Why do they always get the blood wrong?" Barry asked quietly. Len looked at him. Barry's face was crumbling and tears filled his eyes. "It's the _wrong_ _color_."

Len reached his arm out before he could remind himself that he wasn't big on physical contact, and Barry flung himself into the offered embrace, clinging to him as shallow, ragged breaths forced their way out of his chest. Len pulled himself closer and wrapped both arms around Barry's bare torso, tucking the younger man's head under his chin. Barry fell apart against his shoulder, and all Len could do was hold on and whisper sweet lies into his ear and gently rub the skin of his lower back. When Barry had cried himself out, he laid quietly against Len's chest with his gaze once again fixed on his laptop. Len, for his part, just held him. At some point, Barry had practically pulled himself into Len's lap and was now tangled in his blankets. CSI was still playing, and though Len was concerned about Barry's reaction to the blood, the younger man seemed to take solace in the sheer inaccuracy of the forensics if the passive expression was anything to go by. He heard Barry's stomach growl. 

"Do you think you could eat something now?"

Barry nodded slowly. 

"I'll get you something. Just stay here."

Barry let him go and settled back against the pillows propped up on the headboard. Len made a stop in the bathroom and drained the soiled pink water from the bathtub. The wet gloves looked better, but he wasn't done yet. He refilled the tub and added detergent with a cup of peroxide. He'd been getting blood out of clothes for many years now. He knew what he was doing. He didn't think Barry would really care what he ate right now, so he didn't look for anything fancy. He found a stash of instant noodles in the pantry, and set about boiling some more water to prepare a few bowls. They brought back memories of so many long nights babysitting Lisa, his father gone and their food supply low. Lisa couldn't even look at instant noodle bowls anymore. Len still enjoyed them, though at his age the sodium was a bad choice.

Barry barely reacted when Len presented him with the steaming bowls, cooled just enough to not be scalding, and started to eat in an unsettling robotic way. Len again sat next to him on the bed, no longer touching, and waited for Barry to finish inhaling the food. Barry seemed less on edge now, but he could see the strain on his face.

"I know how you feel, Barry," Len said when Barry was done eating and had snuggled down into his cocoon of blankets again. "You might not believe me, but I wasn't always this way. I've been there."

Barry didn't look at him.

"Does it ever go away?" Barry asked, a resigned edge to his voice. 

"You learn to live with it."

"I didn't mean to," Barry said, squeezing his eyes shut to stave off any more tears. He didn't want to cry anymore tonight.

"I know."

"What am I going to do?" 

Len sighed. He was the wrong person for this. Cooking, cleaning blood out of clothes, even letting himself be used as a shoulder to cry on, these things he could handle. He could do those since he was ten years old. But this, trying to find the words to make it okay? Not his area of expertise. 

"Move on," Len finally answered. "Keep doing the hero thing. Eat dinner with your family and go to movies with your friends. Find a way to keep moving."

Barry considered this.

"Will you stay with me tonight?"

Len wanted to run. He still needed to finish the gloves. 

"Sure."

Barry fell into a restless sleep an hour later after allowing Len under the covers with him. Len had stripped off the parka to repeat the bloodstain removal when he realized that Barry had left smudges of it on the back, and was in just his jeans and undershirt. Barry was, it seemed, a natural octopus and had wrapped himself around Len's body when he returned from fishing the gloves out of the tub. He was relaxed in sleep, his lips slightly parted and his breathing even. 

It would all come crashing down when he woke. Barry would still be the Flash, and he would still be Captain Cold. They would fight each other, and Len would win some and Barry would win some.

But for now, Len could hold him. 

 

 


End file.
